


it's gonna take a lot (to keep me away from you)

by imdeansgirl



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Slow Dancing, Underage Drinking, aggressive use of lyrics from 'africa' by toto (1982)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 10:36:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12680157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imdeansgirl/pseuds/imdeansgirl
Summary: On the night of a school dance, Mike Wheeler gets drunk. Will Byers listens.





	it's gonna take a lot (to keep me away from you)

**Author's Note:**

> ah... a friend had this headcanon and. i was all over it so. thank mishi i guess. anyways, come see me on tumblr @ [scisaacs](http://scisaacs.tumblr.com) where i'm literally screaming about byeler 24/7.

Mike Wheeler was a beautiful mess.

He danced like no one was watching when everyone was. He said the wrong kinds of things a little too loudly. He protected his friends like he was the only one who could. He didn’t care what people thought, unless those people were his friends, in which case, he cared way too much. He drank and he grew out his hair and he played the guitar.

And Will Byers was in love with him.

He had been in love with him for, approximately, 4,000 days and a few hours. Loving Mike Wheeler was an unstoppable force, that way - once you started, you really couldn’t stop. So was kissing, touching, holding Mike Wheeler; but he found all of that out a little while later. 4,000 days of loving Mike Wheeler can teach you things like that, when he feels the same way. Or, at least, Will was pretty sure Mike felt the same way. They shared clumsy kisses in bathroom stalls, held hands at Dungeons and Dragons meetings under the table, and talked far too late into the night on the walkie talkies they still had. Will was, at least, 75% sure that Mike Wheeler loved him back. He just… hadn’t found the courage to say it yet.

Will broke himself from thought with a shake of his head, and looked out the window of the Wheeler’s basement. It was dark out. Everybody else had gone to the dance - Lucas and Max, and Dustin and El (purely as friends). They all felt bad, too, as their friends waved goodbye to them from their front step. It was okay, Mike and Will had said. Go on without them, it was fine.

But Will could tell that Mike didn’t think it was fine. Not at all.

So Mike got drunk, and Will let him. Usually, he would say something, like to watch himself. But Will was more than willing to let him have this one - he was upset, Will could tell. Mike drank, and Will watched.

He was talking about… something. Will had zoned out; he hadn’t meant to, but Mike is a social drunk, and since Will was the only person there, _all_ of it was focused on him. Usually, he liked all of Mike’s attention on him; but Mike didn’t seem to be talking about what he _really_ wanted to talk about, so it was mostly just unfiltered nonsense. Will felt like the worst boyfriend.

“... and roll again,” Mike was saying, pacing back and forth in front of the staircase. Karen and Ted had gone to bed long ago, and Nancy was away at college, so Will didn’t worry too much about anyone hearing him rambling, drunk out of his mind. “But El rolls _another_ twenty, which is, just, impossible. So Dustin, justly, accuses her of cheating, and then Max yells at Dustin -”

“Mike,” Will said quietly. Mike, almost immediately, stopped and turned to face him. “Come sit with me.”

Mike must not have been _that_ drunk, since he joined Will on the couch in three long strides. Mike had only gotten taller since they were kids, but he was the perfect height for Will to lean his head on Mike’s shoulder, so he did. Then he interlaced their fingers, so that Mike could feel his heartbeat when they were wrist-to-wrist. Mike dipped his head to lean on Will’s, and Will sighed, mostly out of content, but also out of worry. “What’s wrong?” he asked, and it came out as more of a whisper.

He felt Mike shrug, his shoulders moving tiredly. “It’s nothing,” he said, and Will just squeezed his hand. There’s a long pause. “It’s dumb.”

Will squeezed his hand again, but this time, as more of a reprimand. “Nothing you think and feel is dumb,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me, but I’m listening.” Of course he was listening; Will was always listening.

“It’s just…” Mike trailed off, and Will waited, as Will always did. “I’m just sad. I’m just tired of… not being able to hold your hand in public. Or look at you without being afraid someone is watching. I want to go to the dance with our friends and kiss you and not be afraid of someone hurting one of us. Or dance with you, even.” Mike laughed humorlessly, and raised his head to look down at Will. Will lifted his own head, frowning back. “Is it too much to ask to kiss you in public?”

He didn’t want to answer, because Mike already knew the answer. There was nothing wrong with them, and they both knew that, and yeah, maybe they should be able to kiss and dance and hold hands like they wanted to. But maybe it was a bit too much to ask the town of Hawkins, Indiana. Maybe it was a little too much to ask of any town in Indiana. So Will swallowed and looked down at their hands, still locked together tightly. “One day,” he said, because he believed that, at least. He believed that, one day, they’d be okay. They had to be.

“One day soon?” Mike said hopefully, and Will knew that Mike was just as afraid of the answer being _no_ as he was. So Will said nothing, just smiled sadly.

Mike sighed and disentangled their hands, standing and moving away from the couch. He shuffled over to the radio Nancy gave him last Christmas and turned it on, catching the tail end of some catchy pop song. The radio announcer came on, then, and told them cheerfully that this next song was from a boy to his girl. Mike shook his head, still annoyed, and listened as the song faded in. Drums, he could tell, and Will wasn’t quite sure what the song was, but it seemed as if Mike knew. He turned to Will and grinned, holding out a hand. “Dance with me?” he asked, and Will scoffed.

“You’re drunk,” he accused.

Mike shrugged. “Maybe a little.” He wiggled his fingers as some other instruments set into the song. “C’mon,” he said. “It’s not like anyone can see.”

Will didn’t know quite what it was about Mike Wheeler that could get him to do just about anything, but in the end, he agreed.

They met in the middle. Mike put his hands on Will’s hips, and Will managed to reach up and wrap his arms around Mike’s neck. Mike didn’t exactly tower above him, but if he moved forward a few inches, his lips would connect directly with Will’s forehead. Will smiled up at him, and Mike smiled back as the words set in.

_I hear the drums echoing tonight,_

_But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation._

_She's coming in, 12:30 flight;_

_The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation._

They swayed gently to the rhythm, and Will stepped a little closer to lay his head on Mike’s shoulder. Mike hummed, happily, and held him just a little tighter.

As the next words set in, Mike sang along, gently.

_It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you;_

_There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do;_

_I bless the rains down in Africa;_

_Gonna take some time to do the things we never had._

Will laughed, nuzzling further into the crook of Mike’s neck. “God, you’re a dork,” he murmured, and Mike laughed too.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But I’m your dork.”

As they swayed to the music, Mike continued singing along, Will groaning in embarrassment. But he loved it - he always loved it when Mike sang, even though he didn’t do it often. And there was something about this song - maybe because it was the first song they’d ever danced to, or maybe it was because they _were_ so devoted to each other that not even a different dimension could tear them away from one another - that made it even better.

_Hurry boy, he's waiting there for you._

_It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you;_

_There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do;_

_I bless the rains down in Africa._

Will grinned and pulled away, looking up at Mike, who let his singing fade away and replaced it with a gentle smile. “Hey,” Will said.

“Hey,” Mike replied.

Just for a moment, Will felt something. Bubbling up in his chest, sliding up through his throat and into his mouth - at that moment, he was so consumed with love for Mike Wheeler that he thought that he was going to burst. So he did. “I love you,” he said softly.

For a moment, nothing happened. The world was frozen, and all there was was Will Byers, whose heart was caught in his throat, Mike Wheeler, whose face was blank, and a cheesy love song blaring over the radio. In one moment, everything was frozen; and in the next, it wasn’t.

Mike’s smile was so slow, it seemed as if it melted all over his face; his cheeks were rosy, mouth was wide, eyes were bright. “I love you too,” he said, and leaned closer. “So damn much.”

Mike Wheeler was a beautiful mess. He talked too much when he was drunk, which he was far too often for a boy of only sixteen. He wanted too much from a world that didn’t care about him enough to give it all to him. He told his friends he was okay when he was anything but. He danced and he sang and he kissed like he was hungry and Will was the only thing that could satiate him.

Will Byers was in love with him. And Mike loved him back.

_I bless the rains down in Africa_

_I bless the rains down in Africa_

_I bless the rains down in Africa_

_Gonna take some time to do the things we never had._


End file.
